Luxembourg strengthens its ties with ESA

Luxembourg

13 September 2000

On 12 September, Mrs Erna Hennicot-Schoepges, Minister for Culture, Higher Education and Research of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and Mr Antonio Rodotà, Director General of the European Space Agency, signed an agreement that will enable Luxembourg to participate in ESA’s ARTES telecommunications programme.

A member of the European Union and the Council of Europe, Luxembourg has already acquired experience in space matters through its involvement in Intelsat, Eutelsat and Eurocontrol, and through its national activities linked to space. With this agreement, the Grand Duchy will reinforce the European dimension of ESA.

ARTES, ESA’s Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems programme, consists of several elements, each covering a particular area of telecommunications such as on-board processing, multimedia/global information infrastructure, advanced mobile systems, tele-education, tele-medicine, tele-conferencing and data exchange.

The programme aims to improve the competitiveness of European industry on world markets for communications missions, and to promote new services for advanced communications systems. ARTES also provides support to other application programmes (navigation and earth observation) through specific actions.